Within Death's Hand
by Amavi L. Michael
Summary: The Tale of the Infamous Lady Charissa Alyssae k'Treva. RP based- please note, there will be characters which are not my own. When they enter, I will announce them.


This is simply a prologue, so give me some time to switch gears and get into the story. If anyone is at all interested, let me know with some reviews.

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"Tell me what you remember."

"You already know my story."

"Yes, but I want to make sure you know your story, Chari."

The Death Knight glanced at the wall of the small inn room, acting as if she was admiring the artwork as she called the broken memories to mind. An elf sat at her back, leaning against the cold plates of her armor, waiting patiently for her to collect her thoughts.

"Where do you wish for me to start?"

"The beginning."

"There were once Titans, but no one knows how they came to be or how the world came to be-"

The elf at her back promptly flicked her ear, seeming to not care about the year she had been dead to him or how she had embraced her undeath. Growling lightly, the Death Knight closed her eyes and leaned her head back to rest against the elf in pure dead weight, curling her lips into a smirk as he squirmed from being uncomfortable.

"Your beginning, Chari."

Chari removed her weight from his weak body and resumed the back to back position they had started in. Drawing a deep breath out of a now unnecessary habit, she ran her fingers along the engravings in her plate armor, loving the designs she worked into the metal herself.

"I was born to two common stock elves who lived about five miles from the City. They owned their own farm and worked hard to make enough to pay the taxes and feed themselves… My mother, Amoria Gul'thans, was once a noble in the City- a lower noble, but still a titled name nonetheless. When she met my father, a half-blood farmer, she left her family and ran off to marry one without a copper to his name-"

"Love makes people do crazy things, you should know that."

Growling a low warning, the Death Knight continued to run her fingers along the metal adorning her thigh. Struggling to keep her calm and not attack the aggravation behind her out of respect for their past, she forced herself to ignore his comments and carry on with her story.

"Mother went crazy with the lack of her old power. She missed it, but loved her husband so much she was willing to let him never know of her absolute obsession with power. 'The greatest power is that which you wait for,' she would quote to herself. Eventually, an opening into power came right onto her doorstep. An elf, gems in her delicate hair and obvious a noble, was found in their fields. My mother's husband rushed to their small home with the fragile noble in his arms, calling to my mother to help.

"Amoria helped the elf, put her into their own bed, and shooed her husband away back into the fields. Mother had partial training of a priest, a mind healer, and quickly dove into the mind of the noble as soon as her husband was gone. But she knew she had to strip the mind completely and force the contents into a gem, for she never was good at her skills. The elf died a few hours after mother's job was complete."

The elf at her back fell still, he had never heard her story so fully. In life, Chari was so ashamed by her true upbringing that she was always vague about it. Not wanting to miss a word, but not wanting to pass out due to lack of air, the elf took slow breaths, his ears straining.

"I was soon after conceived, for mother needed an empty vessel to work with. She was already known in the City, thus she was wasted. However, with her child, she could groom it into the know-hows of the City and teach it as if it belonged to the late noble elf. When I was born, the gem named me Charissa k'Treva, though my mother put her own touch to the noble name. My extra name was Alyssae, the one I actually go by."

Curling his lips into a smirk, he knew that she hated to be called by her birth name. But that was all the more fun, wasn't it? This was Alyssae, one of the greatest people he knew… surely she would see he was merely teasing her by calling her 'Chari.'

"It took forty-eight winters before I was ready to be sent to the City and take the place of the noble my mother killed so long ago. I was sent out with the knowledge that I was to play a double-life. Inside, I was a part-human who had the potential to go far. Outside, I was a prim and proper noble elf ready to take her 'mother's' place in her House.

"The k'Treva House took me in with welcome arms when I showed them my ring claiming my birthright and the gems which Adoriae, the noble my mother found, had on her person. Mother's story was clever, but largely flawed… So I spun my own tale, the House believing every word and quickly placing me on a golden pedestal, for the Head of the House, my 'grand-father,' loved his eldest daughter with all his heart. That loved was passed on to her 'daughter' – me."


End file.
